Jaycee Dugard sues feds, citing Garrido parole failures

By Robert SalongaContra Costa Times

Posted:
09/22/2011 12:25:30 PM PDT

Updated:
09/22/2011 03:40:07 PM PDT

Attorneys for Jaycee Dugard sued the federal government Thursday morning, lambasting federal authorities' decision to cut short Phillip Garrido's prison sentence and their lackluster enforcement of his parole in the 1990s, when he kidnapped Dugard.

The complaint seeks unspecified damages and parallels state proceedings that netted Dugard and her two daughters fathered by Garrido a $20 million settlement from the Legislature last year. Nancy Seltzer, Dugard's Los Angeles-based publicist, said the complaint was filed after Dugard was twice denied mediation by the federal government.

In the filing, Dugard's attorneys reveal that a 35-minute interview with parole officials led to Garrido's release from federal prison in 1987, just 11 years into a 50-year sentence for the rape and kidnapping of a South Lake Tahoe woman in 1976. From there, the filing states, the shortcomings in assessing Garrido's danger to the public only got worse.

Garrido kidnapped Dugard in 1991 and in the course of sexual slavery carried out over the next few years fathered two daughters while keeping them hidden in a backyard compound of tents, sheds and a soundproofed studio that doubled as Dugard's birthing room. The complaint argues that parole checks and psychiatric evaluations downplayed disturbing spikes in his personality and numerous parole violations, and that federal authorities did not share their full records with state parole agents who took over his supervision in 1999.

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Many of the assertions made in the complaint were acknowledged in a federal report on Garrido's parole supervision released this year as well as a state audit in November 2009, about two months after Dugard resurfaced near Antioch.

In a statement, Seltzer said Dugard is not seeking money for herself but rather her nonprofit, the JAYC Foundation, which is aimed at providing treatment and support for victims of abductions and traumatic experiences.

Dugard is leaving it up to a judge to decide any monetary settlement, Seltzer said.

Since she was freed, Dugard has lived in seclusion in the state and has limited her public exposure to a highly rated ABC News interview with Diane Sawyer. Her memoir, "A Stolen Life," was released in July and continues to chart on bestseller lists. Her ordeal inspired a state bill authored in August that would give prison boards the discretion to consider an inmate's offense in deciding parole, and shift the burden to the inmate rather than the board to prove the person's fitness for release.

A budding website for her nonprofit purports: "The JAYC Foundation provides support and services to ensure the timely treatment of families that are recovering from abduction and the aftermath of other traumatic experiences."

Animal and food therapies are available, in addition to traditional therapy.